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2020

5 February 2020 - Looking Back and Looking Forward: Memory and Hope in Art Born of Conflict

As an exhibition about the Bogside Murals in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, opens in The Exchange in Bush House, this special session of the Sacred Traditions and the Arts Seminar will take the form of a panel discussion.

Devised in close co-operation with the Bogside Artists themselves, the exhibition draws attention to the non-sectarian Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s and explores the lasting effects of The Troubles on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. The twelve large-scale murals of the local artists—now known as The People’s Gallery—have played a significant role in the way The Troubles continue to be interpreted and responded to.

Our panellists will discuss questions about how visual art produced in response to situations of conflict might work both to document and to transform memory. When and how does visual art help shared remembering in situations where there is a legacy of social division? How might good remembering be balanced—or betrayed—by future-oriented perspectives?

2019

14 October 2019 - The Devotional Eye: Pre-Modern and Modern Experiments in Slow Looking

In this pairing of papers, we explored the ways in which visual art might serve and support particular kinds of devotional reading. Alixe Bovey drew on her expertise in the art and culture of the Middle Ages, with special interests in illuminated manuscripts and visual storytelling, to discuss how this has been so historically. She looked particularly at Books of Hours. Matthew Moser looked at how this classical practice of holy reading might find new forms in the present, developing a ‘modest constructive proposal’ for contemporary theological aesthetics by practising lectio divina with the Genesis frontispiece of the Saint John’s Bible. He explored how such a strategy for ‘reading’ an image can open up to theological interpretation without betraying its integrity as an art form.

26 June 2019 - The (In)visibility of Theology in Contemporary Art

This seminar in the Sacred Traditions & the Arts series will break from our usual two-speaker format to enable us to hear from the US scholar, Jonathan Anderson—co-author of the ground-breaking Modern Art and the Life of a Culture: The Religious Impulses of Modernism (2016). As prominent art historians like Thomas Crow call for the lifting of the ‘interdiction’ on theology in discussions of modern and contemporary art (No Idols: The Missing Theology of Modern Art), Anderson will explore some of the ways that religion is newly visible in contemporary art, before turning to explore the ways that theology might also make itself newly discussable in the way that such art is interpreted and analyzed.

25 February 2019 - Protestantism: The Death of Art or the Birth of Art History?

Michael Squire’s paper will explore the interconnections between Protestant assumptions about images and the academic discipline of art history. His argument  – painted in what he calls ‘scandalously broad brushstrokes’ – will be that art historians have at once overlooked and undertheorised the theological (specifically Lutheran) underpinnings of the discipline. On the one hand, his position intersects with what G.W.F. Hegel had to say about the history of art and its critique in his 1820s Lectures on Aesthetics. On the other, he asks whether Hegel in fact forms part of a problem rather than of a solution – and how these themes relate to the broader ‘material’ and ’sensory’ turns of the twenty-first century.

2018

23 October 2018 - Interpreting the Sacred in Dante's Comedy

Twice in the Commedia, Dante refers to his poem as 'sacred'. The first of these references is in the context of a description of Beatrice's smile; the second is in the context of Dante's expressing his hope of being crowned as poet in the place of his baptism. How should these passages be interpreted? What is the relationship between them? What are their implications for understanding the art of Dante's Commedia as a whole? Vittorio Montemaggi’s paper will address such questions both in themselves and with a view to opening up to more general questions about the theological value of poetry.

18 June 2018 - The Human Figure in Islamic Art

In a pair of short lectures, Dr Joachim Meyer and Dr Tim Winter will explore the theme of ‘The Human Figure in Islamic Art’ from two different disciplinary perspectives, followed by a discussion.

2017

7 March 2017 - The Right Eyes: Language, Faith, and the Development of Modern Art

The emergence and proliferation of criticism and theory has been a defining feature of the history of modern artistic practice since the middle of the nineteenth century. Yet how such discourse relates to works of art and how language relates to aesthetic experience more generally remains an abiding problem for art historians because the appearance and development of modern art was as much an event of language as it was a pictorial revolution. In an effort to understand this linguistic phenomenon art historians have sought assistance from other disciplines and fields, such as critical theory, philosophy, and literary criticism. This paper argues that modern Protestant theology might offer some helpful insights.

Siedell will suggest that the development of modern art turns on a nearly imperceptible shift in the responsibility of language in, around, and under works of art to bear witness to as well as invoke and enact a distinctive experience to which modern Protestant theology, with its sensitivity to aspects of language, sight, and faith, might be especially helpful.

2016

8 March 2016 - Thomas Gambier Parry's Aesthetics of Theology: The Art and Faith of a Victorian Collector

This seminar considers the interplay between the aesthetic sensibilities and religious beliefs of Thomas Gambier Parry, an Anglo-Catholic artist and collector of the Victorian Period. As the speaker examines this fascinating figure and his “aesthetics of theology,” she draws upon his involvement in the theological movements of his time in order to offer some broader observations about the religious climate of nineteenth-century Britain.

2015

17 November 2015 - Place, pilgrimage and the sense: experiencing and interacting with sacred spaces, past and present

Great cathedrals are not only treasure houses of art and architecture; they also offer ideal, but hitherto largely overlooked, 'laboratories' in which to analyse and compare patterns of engagement with sacred spaces through the centuries. A major AHRC research project is examining the intersection between the material and representational (buildings, works of art, devotional objects etc) and belief, practice and experience in English cathedrals, with an emphasis on the role of the senses in spiritual encounter and the ways in which buildings shape response. The project is also mapping the interface between sacred and secular practices, in what are both sacred places and sites of local and national heritage. This seminar will share research findings and discuss key issues which lie at the heart of the dynamics of sacred space.

16 June 2015 - God or not?

This seminar will explore from two perspectives how 20th-century art has responded to the felt godlessness of that century - or else has questioned it. Francis Bacon was a resolute atheist who opposed religious readings of his work, and this also explained the critical (in both senses of the word) neglect of discussion of the religious significance of his work. His repeated use of religious symbols throughout his oeuvre, however, cannot be ignored. Our first talk will argue that Bacon was a militant atheist who used his art, and in particular religious images, to react against a tradition that he felt was untrue or untenable and how he needed these symbols to express his unbelief. The irony is that, in his negation of the symbols, he ended up reinforcing the religiosity of the symbols because his deconstruction is a form of reconstitution, where we as viewers are reminded of the significance of the symbols in question. Our second talk will explore how the horrors of 20th-century experience, especially in the context of war, are given a negative valence in Paul Nash’s work, but are turned in the hands of David Jones towards something more hopeful.

11 February 2015 - Love at the Jewish museum

2014

27 November 2014 - Solve Calceamentum De Pedibus Tuis: Locus Enim, In Quo Stas, Terra Sancta Est’ (Exod. 3: 5): Liturgical, Theological, Architectural, And Art Historical Perspectives On The Ethiopian Church

The Ethiopian Church, today known as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, is unique in many ways. The first part of this seminar will provide an overview of the rich history of Christianity in Ethiopia, following its official espousal in the fourth century, then will explore the role and significance of the tabot (Ark of the Covenant) in the Ethiopian Church. The second part of the seminar will examine how the theology and spirituality of the Ethiopian Church have shaped certain aspects of Ethiopian medieval iconography.

25 June 2014 - The Art of the Decalogue

Marking the 25th anniversary of Krzysztof Kieslowski's series of films, and the composition of a new work of choral music by Gareth Wilson entitled Decalogue, this special meeting of the Sacred Traditions and the Arts Seminar will examine artistic responses to the Ten Commandments.

25 February 2014 - Meet the Ten Thousand Buddhas Of Dunhuang

This paper will present diagnostic investigations undertaken by The Courtauld Institute of Art and the Dunhuang Academy at Caves 260 and 263 in Mogao, Dunhuang, China. It will discuss issues of original technique as well as conservation challenges related to the wall paintings and the architectural sculpture.

The iconography and layout of the cave will also be discussed in relation to the Buddhist beliefs and history of the region.

2013

Tuesday 15 October 2013 - Art in the Face of Trauma

This seminar will explore from two perspectives how 20th-century art has responded to 20th-century traumas. These two perspectives contrast in being, respectively, Jewish and Christian, but also in bringing insights from the practice of art, and the practice of theology. As is usual in the Sacred Traditions and the Arts seminar, the two papers will each be around 20 minutes long, and the discussion that follows will permit opportunities to discuss and explore both congruence and contrasts between them.

The seminar on Sacred Traditions and the Arts is a joint venture between the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s and The Courtauld. It seeks to place researchers in dialogue who are working on any aspect of the sacred and visual culture. It is open to all scholars and students who have an interest in exploring the intersections of religion and art regardless of period, geography or tradition.

Friday 26 April 2013 - Materiality and the Sacred

This seminar will explore the role materiality played in shaping sacred objects in the Middle Ages. By considering the exegetical significance of two key artistic media, ivory and rock crystal respectively, and how scientific and medical texts construed the place of these materials in the natural world, Sarah Guérin and Stefania Gerevini each consider how media contributed to the communication of the sacred

Wednesday 20 March 2013 - Sacred Space and the Cinematic

This seminar will explore space and place in the cinematic context (with a particular focus on Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and Philip Gröning’s Into Great Silence) and consider how film can negotiate questions of the sacred.

2012

Thursday 11 October 2012 -  Invisible Cathedral: Reconsidering the Sacred in Today’s Art Museum'/ 'Helen Sutherland, Patron and Collector: Art and Sacrament in the Fells

Tuesday 12 June 2012 - The Godless and the Ikon: Soviet Materialism in Sacred Forms’ / ‘Jewish Artists/Christian Spaces: Mark Rothko and Louise Nevelson

The inaugural seminar to explore Sacred Traditions and the Arts is a joint venture between the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at King’s and The Courtauld. It seeks to place researchers in dialogue who are working on any aspect of the sacred and visual culture. It is open to all scholars and students who have an interest in exploring the intersections of religion and art regardless of period, geography or tradition.

On 12 June, Professor John Milner will speak on The Godless and the Ikon: Soviet Materialism in Sacred Forms. Dr Aaron Rosen will then present a paper entitled Jewish Artists/Christian Spaces: Mark Rothko and Louise Nevelson. This pairing explores and complicates notions of sacred experience in relation to modern spaces and identity in Russia and the United States in the twentieth century.